I laugh when I look at pictures of myself in the studio and see that I wear the same clothes all the time. My favorite is my artmaking apron. It’s a terrific apron, made from a pair of denim overalls. I won it in a Christmas gift exchange in my art quilt group several years ago. I have added a good crunchy layer of paint to the front of it, built up in layers and from many days of artmaking.

Today I traded in this apron for my cooking apron, the one my daughter created for me. It has great big pockets, a dinosaur across the bottom and it is lined in a pattern of screen printed fish. I was chopping and stirring today, part of the kitchen team with my Rotary Club, preparing to feed over a thousand guests tomorrow and raise a lot of money for local causes in our annual Wild Game Feast.

What different enterprises. Working alone in the studio. Working in a team with a service cub. I like them both.

Things that are completely different can both be interesting and pleasing.

In my studio, I go back and forth between playing Mozart or Beethoven and Elton John or Paul Simon.

I am drawn to vibrant, intense colors. And sometimes a simple, subdued palette of grey and white will just take my breath away.

I love abstract art. It simply fascinates me. But it’s not what I create. And I can completely enjoy a simple, well-rendered still life of a tea cup.

I work well alone, and — if circumstances keep me away from my studio work for a few days —I long to be there creating, all by myself. But I’m also fulfilled by working in the fast-paced, close contact environment of a first grade classroom, or the shoulder-to-shoulder camaraderie of a service club project.

We are diverse and intricate creatures. We are filled with different and seemingly conflicting needs and desires. We are both curious and complacent.

Before stopping to compose this post, I was reading a great book of poems. It has filled me with appreciation of details and diversity and depth and rhythms.

And tomorrow morning I will put on my dinosaur apron and head back to the feast site and immerse myself in that very different kind of creative endeavor.

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This blog post ended up being more words than pictures. If you are in the mood to look at some pictures, may I recommend my you-tube videos? There are a number to see and they show works in progress. I hope you enjoy!

I had a great morning session of hand printmaking this morning. I realized as I looked at the completed images how the rhythm of printing and having a successful session depend on some little things. These become like familiar friends. As I set up I get in printing mode

Acrylics on my worktable: I set out the colors I plan to use for the prints. I love these quart jars of acrylic paints with the nice wide, easy-access lids. Several years ago an artist friend told me about Nova Color paints from California. I have been using them since, and they are also my primary source for matte medium and gel medium. (I buy these by the gallon.) I limit my palette of colors kept on-hand and mix all my printing colors from these basics.

My favorite mixing palette: I tape down a sheet of white paper to the worktable and tape a sheet of waxed paper over that. I mix on the waxed paper. It’s economical and disposable. (And I can also monotype print from the colors on the palette at the end of a session!)

Printing plate: I print by hand from a soft gelatin plate. The plate I am using currently is in a commercial size cookie sheet about 18” x 22”. I mix my own, and use a recipe with glycerin so it does not have to be refrigerated. I have been using this one nearly a year. I also have a commercial gelatin plate I use when I want to have two going at once. Each has its own quirks, and you have to experiment with amount of liquid needed and amount of pressure.

Materials: Generally, I print on muslin, sheer polyester fabric (shown) and rice paper. The more delicate printing materials (the polyester and the rice paper) pick up more nuance and delicate image from the plate. The muslin will print with a more opaque appearance.

Hands on! I use my hands to press stencils and relief materials on the plate and then press my printing surface into the paint. Yes, my hands get pretty messy. But I’ve tried gloves and just don’t like working that way.

Here are a few of the images I created this morning. I’ll be incorporating these into a new art quilt.

While I incorporate monotype printed pieces into all of my large textile collages and art quilts, I’ve also been creating some smaller paper-mounted monotype collage pieces this year. A sample is below, and you can see them on my website HERE

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Recently I decided to create some collaged works in a slightly new size: up from 16 x 20 to a 20 x 24 piece. It involved ordering some cut mats for a finished presentation.

I had the ideas, but just couldn’t get the wheels turning till I received the mats and saw the actual size. Then the ideas clicked.

It was seeing the frame. It was placing the concept in its picture plane.

I’m not sure if I’m sharing this as a handy tip or as a confession. Maybe it’s just a thinking-through of how ideas and compositions go together.

Arranging images in the composition

I don’t seem to come up with an image or an idea in isolation. When I start sketching or planning, it’s always the primary image or concept in context. As I sketch I work the object in the space, determining whether the overall composition should be vertical or horizontal, and how the image fits in that space. In addition to the focal object, what else will be in the composition? How will those parts interact? What’s the pattern of lights and darks?

As I looked back through my sketchbook, I saw that I always work out ideas by beginning with the perimeter. Or if I sketch the object first, I get a perimeter around it pretty quickly, to give it a place to belong.

I know that when I feel like I get it “right,” composition and concept are partners that reinforce each other. When I don’t work out the use of space as part of depicting the focal image, the piece will be lacking.

“Remember It In Pieces” is the finished work shown in progress above. It’s on my web site, HERE

And now for THE CHAIR…

This should be fun. I’m participating in a fundraiser sponsored by the City of DeLand: artists decorate chairs and they will be auctioned. Proceeds will fund public art projects in the City. The event is in January. I need to have this done in a few weeks. So, here’s the official “Before” picture. I want to use fabric. So far that’s about all I know for sure. Stay tuned.

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider. You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. Subscribe here: STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

This work has recently been completed. I finished up the binding and backing. This gave me a chance to look at it again and remember some of what I thought about as I was creating it.

I am interested in combining realities. First in this piece is the combining of photographic reality with patterned monotypes. The photo transfer appears inside the house (the closeups of twigs) and also in the underground section (the pattern of water). I created patterns of hand-printed fabrics to be a visual metaphor for the richness and complexity of all that’s gone before.

The use of the spatial plane has also been mixed up a bit in this work. This functions in one sense as a landscape; there is a horizon line and the house has suggestions of perspective. At the same time, it’s a flat plane, not a realistic foreground-background. I view these roots and all the underground patterns like a cut-away view, as if we took a vertical slice of reality and could see above and below at the same time. Yellow sky above. Patterned blue textures below.

This cutaway view then also suggests the passage of time. The roots are not reaching down into a static moment now. They are reaching into all the history and story that compromise the home.

I remember that I started this work when I needed an emotional respite. Just before this, I had created a work that is quite chaotic. Trees grow up and uproot homes and the mood is dark, like a fairy tale story. I felt the need for a new palette and was drawn to thee colors as a soothing change. But, as it developed, I began to see that the complexity of the patterns created an opening to more meaning. Some family histories are warm and cherished. Some entail secrets and hurts. The exact nature of the past is not defined at in this work.

Like real life… It’s complicated.

Here’s a video with closeups and some insights into the work in progress.

How tempting it is. I long for days when I can just bury myself in my studio. I love being surrounded by my artmaking things, going back through my sketchbook, sitting and just looking at works in progress to envision what’s next. Solitary work is pleasing.

But, wonderful things happen when I leave the studio and become involved in the community. Wonderful for me. And, I have to believe, important, in the way that all the simple, huimble contributions of community members add up to shaping the character of the world.

This week, after a coffee meeting in downtown DeLand, I shot this picture of an electric box covered with a digital image of my artwork. The sun was lighting up the box nicely – as if it were posing for me. It was a simple and good affirmation of the value of public art in our community. My work is only on this box because I responded to a call-for-artists. And that only took place because some volunteers had vision for this project and did all of the legwork needed to make it happen. Now, people I talk to in town, even if they don’t know I have anything to do with this project, say, “Wow. Have you seen those cool boxes around town with art on them?” Simple, small additions to the fabric of life.

The coffee meeting I attended will create a project less visible. My Rotary club is working with the other two Rotary clubs in DeLand, along with the Early Learning Coalition, to fund a program that sends books every month to preschool children in our community. When it’s up and running, there will not be visible things on street corners. But the lives of these children will be better. And it will only happen because groups of people cared enough to attend early morning meetings, write grants, talk on the phone and e-mail other people to ask for help, and do the legwork to make it happen.

Solitary artmaking is pleasing. Living my whole life alone and un-connected would not be pleasing.